JANE PAULEY
THE VETERAN JOURNALIST CREDITS HER SUCCESS TO A PIVOTAL HIGH SCHOOL MOMENT
The TV journalist dishes on finding success through the power of a childhood failure.
To have a life like I’ve had is as- tonishing,” Jane Pauley admitted to Closer at the Writers Guild Awards in New York City on Feb. 11. But before you start to think the CBS Sunday Morning host is just boasting of her good fortune, she’s quick to point out that it all could have been different — if she’d been a better cheerleader.
Growing up in Indianapolis, Jane, 67, says she felt “pretty great” when she made the cheerleading squad in sixth grade. But when she failed to make it four years later, she was crushed. “But that’s when I discovered my big, suburban high school had one of the best speech and debate programs in the country,” Jane recalls. “I discovered I was a mediocre cheerleader, but I had another [talent] I didn’t know I had.”
GIVE ME A J-A-N-E!
Jane went on to be a speech and debate champion at Warren Central High School, a talent that led her to TV broadcasting and to become the co-host of Today at age 25.
She credits her career success to that high school disappointment, and her authenticity. “If you try real hard to be what’s successful for someone else, you’re probably neglecting, or not discovering, the thing that is your particular strength,” she advises.
Now Jane, who’s married to Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, 69, and recently became a grandmother for the third time, still gets emotional when she thinks back on her own realization about herself. “Not making cheerleader in the 10th grade,” she says tearing up, “turned out to be a pivotal, lifechanging opportunity.” — Lisa Chambers,
with reporting by Lexi Ciccone
“I’ve had a life where there have been a lot of really, really good days.”
— Jane